one more day (is not enough)
by shanatique
Summary: 'Befriend Miura Haru,' says the note in his handwriting, along with a corresponding date, place and time. Or: How Irie Shouichi saves the future by destroying it, gets the girl, gets the guy, gets got, gets a job, gets away with murder (in multiple senses), and valiantly struggles against his impending ulcer along the way.
1. boy meets girl, meet boy

**AN:** _The blame for this getting published can be laid at Wyrvel's feet. I started writing this in September of 2013, never got past 4,000 words, read a bunch of Wyrvel's stories and then had a burning need to write Low-Key Hellishly Passive-Aggressive Mother-In-Law Yamamoto Takeshi._

* * *

' _Befriend Miura Haru,'_ says the note in his handwriting, along with a corresponding date, place and time.

Shouichi wonders who this person, this _savior_ is, the one who his could-be self seems convinced will somehow manage to fix his mess so superbly that nobody and nothing else is necessary. He almost talks himself out of meeting them at all, out of some strange mix of despair and guilt. Those feelings are only ghosts of possible-futures he vaguely remembers, though, so he does in fact find himself in front of the surprisingly cute cake shop at the arranged moment.

A girl a year or two younger than him crashes her way out of the door and through him, leaving them both sprawled out on the pavement and the cake she was carrying splattered firmly across Shouichi's face and chest.

"Hahi!" The girl shrieks in dismay as she clambers up onto her knees. From what Shouichi can see, between the smear of frosting on his glasses and the vague blur that is the world without prescription-corrected vision, she certainly does look upset—but whether that's for his sake or the cake's remains to be seen.

"Haru is _so_ sorry!" The girl continues, wringing her hands anxiously and producing a handkerchief. She makes a confused, abortive motion as though unsure where, exactly, she should start cleaning.

It's not the most auspicious of meetings, but he's woken up shaking in the middle of the night with visions of wastelands dancing through his head one time too many— _every_ time too many—and that makes him just desperate enough to run with it.

"It's okay," he insists with an awkward smile. "I didn't see you coming out, so the fault's half mine." He adjusts his glasses, and does his best to ignore the glob of cake sluggishly sliding down from the lens to his cheek.

Miura Haru smiles at him, a little shy and a little grateful, and he feels a flicker of hope light up within himself.

She's not exactly what he was expecting, true. Shouichi isn't sure exactly _what_ he was expecting, really, only that she is so far outside of those expectations that he doesn't even have the energy to panic about being helped up and cleaned off by a moderately cute girl roughly in his age bracket.

Miura Haru may be unexpected, but perhaps all saviors are in some way or another.

* * *

Miura Haru is most certainly _not_ a savior.

Shouichi figures that out about two days into their fledging friendship, and once he understands that, it utterly confounds him that he ever thought otherwise for so much as a second.

Haru is loud, and petulant, and righteous; she dresses up in strange costumes that no other—normal—girl would touch, but which somehow her classmates at Midori never ridicule her for wearing.

"It's Haru," says one of the Midori girls who had seen his shell-shocked reaction on the first official day of their friendship, when he showed up for the replacement shirt he had been promised. The girl speaks with the rueful ease of one who had seen this sort of thing up close and personal for years. "She can be a little… _out there_ , sure, but she makes things interesting. She's a good girl; she always means well."

 _That_ , Shouichi doesn't doubt for a moment. Haru is too world-jarringly sincere about everything she puts her mind to for anything insidious to be cooked up behind that beaming face. She had _hand-made_ him a new shirt after the cake-smeared one had been deemed a loss despite all their efforts to save it, and he's fairly certain that the little Namahage embroidered on the breast pocket was her doing as well.

But that _second_ day, when Haru gushes about Mafioso babies and explosions and the _amazing_ Tsuna-san.

 _That's_ when Shouichi understands, with perfect clarity, that Miura Haru is not a savior.

Saviors do not speak of criminal activity and mayhem with heartfelt sighs, and it isn't even as though Haru is glitzing things up in her head. …Well. Maybe in the case of the illustrious, heroic, handsome Tsuna-san, from what little Shouichi remembers of the meek boy he met briefly during his attempt to return his ill-gotten temporal goods to Lambo Bovino. But that's beside the point. The point is that it would be _reassuring_ if Haru was just building a bubbly fantasy. But she isn't, because roughly the same instant as the original understanding dawns, a second but no less important epiphany strikes him: Haru is _smart_.

Not like him, not like how he can run algorithms in his head faster than a computer; Haru is the _scary_ kind of smart, the way that the most successful people always are. Haru has goals, and Haru has accomplishments that follow those goals, and no failures—merely goals in various states of achievement or goals she has tossed aside in favor of greater, more alluring plans. She doesn't delude herself, or at least, not with the big picture of what she wants and how she plans to get it.

It kind of terrifies him to realize that he has become one of those goals already, but the fact that they even met remains proof that Shouichi is capable of shelving his own cowardice to get things done.

She's also whip-smart academically, courtesy of good old-fashioned hard work and genes from her math professor father. And her father is yet another thing that blindsides him—Shouichi meets the man an hour after their not-so-accidental introduction, draped in one of the man's large t-shirts while Haru fights a losing battle against the ruined confection smeared into his own. At first glance, Shouichi pegs the man as one of his own breed—a wimpy, pacifistic intellectual type.

Then the man shrugs off his deliberately ill-fitting blazer, showcasing a physique that is much, much, _much_ less pot-bellied than it previously appeared and more like the dictionary definition of 'barrel-chested' as he softly enquires whether Shouichi will be staying for dinner.

For the record, after he recovers from his initial fear and subtly—frantically—establishes himself as a purely platonic insertion into the household, it turns out to be one of the most delicious and amiable meals he has ever taken part in.

But no, that's the precursor to their friendship, the negative-first day. It's the _second_ day when those dots begin to connect.

Miura Haru is not a savior.

She is a _destroyer of worlds._

They have only really been friends for two days. He thinks to himself after the double strike of clarity lands, as she grips his shoulders and laughs, delighted while they bike up and down the small suburban hills in flagrant violation of safety regulations, that perhaps, just perhaps, it isn't too late to cut ties and hope that some other could-be future version of himself has a Plan B.

He knows it absolutely _is_ too late when he sees a vaguely familiar head of bushy brown hair and hears Haru call out happily, only for the younger boy to blanch and poorly play at deafness before fervently ducking around the corner. He feels Haru's fingers curl just a bit tighter and somehow knows without looking back that she's still smiling, as though the boy she had been singing the praises of hasn't just blown her off spectacularly.

He thinks to himself, when he peddles past the street that Sawada Tsunayoshi took off down and Haru doesn't ask him to turn after the boy, that maybe a destroyer of worlds isn't such a bad option after all. If what little he remembered of the futures he visited were indicative of the majority, then maybe it might be a good thing for the possibilities for all those could-be worlds to go up in smoke.

He speeds up at the top of the next hill just to hear the bubbly, scarily focused girl he met two and a half days ago squeal with laughter on the way down, and tries to ignore the niggling instinct that says that the futures haunting him probably imploded as soon as he decided to let the force of nature known as Miura Haru slam into his life.

He's actually able to forget it quite successfully when one of Namimori's increasingly rare police officers pops up on the sidewalk to bark at them about the dangers of tandem riding and Haru shrieks at him to go faster before the man can catch them.

* * *

"Haru wants to _die,_ " she declares miserably one afternoon, two and a half years or so into their friendship. It's not long after the beginning of her second year of high school and his third.

Shouichi trades a look with her father from over the homework he already has spread out over the table. He and Haru have, by this point, grown close enough by now that their homes have somehow melded together into one great hive of a residence, split miraculously between two fairly distant locations without either family taking much notice at all. The older man raises the large carrot and grater he has in his hands and gives him a 'what-can-you-do' sort of smile, leaving the boy on his own once more.

"What happened?" Shouichi asks, obligingly shuffling his papers around so she can slump over the table morosely.

Haru whimpers something into the mahogany.

Shouichi carefully sets his pencil aside and gives his friend—his best friend by now, all world-saving-slash-destroying plans aside—his full and undivided attention. "Sorry, one more time?"

She slowly lifts her head, letting out an anguished howl. "I said, _he told me I'm like a sister to him!"_

Shouichi shoots a desperate look to her father, but the man has produced a pair of large headphones from somewhere and is continuing to grate his carrots, humming along loudly to a popular Enka song and bouncing slightly to the beat.

The traitor.

"…maybe he has really deep-seated, family-based psychological issues?" Shouichi offers tentatively. They both steadfastly ignore the soft, choking sounds of poorly hidden amusement from the kitchen.

Truth be told, this is both exactly the sort of thing Shouichi has been hoping for, and simultaneously the exact opposite.

After all, it isn't that he hates the Vongola in particular, or wants to see his friend this distraught, or that he resents how roundabout and unkind Sawada Tsunayoshi has been about turning Haru down after literally leading her on for _years_ —

…okay, truth be told, maybe a little bit of the second factor is coloring his views. Or a lot.

But the main reason he has been slowly and steadily weaning Haru from the Tenth Generation's clique and vice versa is very simple; clinically so, even. Put in terms of an equation, if Haru is the solution to his future problem(s), then Vongola is about fifty-seven extra variables that make the process that much harder.

And the best way to get a good, solid answer, he knows, is to simplify the issue as much as possible.

He certainly isn't happy that Sawada Tsunayoshi still cares enough to see her as _family_ —such a damning label with that baby in the fedora still in the picture, seriously, what was the boy _thinking?_ —but neither, thankfully, is Haru.

"I want to disappear _forever,_ hahi," Haru mumbles, and it's the consistent, proper use of a first-person pronoun that finally makes Shouichi realize just how well and truly upset she is over this development. He immediately feels a rush of guilt for being a bad, manipulative excuse for a friend. His shame deepens as a treacherous, selfish thought immediately begins to take form in the wake of her misery. He salves the twinge of self-recrimination with the knowledge that it will benefit her in the long run, plans or no plans.

"Haru…" He hesitates, of course he does; he always does. It's on purpose for once. "If… I mean, it's just an idea, but if you really think you can't stand seeing him around all the time, um…"

"Spit it out, Shou-kun," her father advises, already four steps ahead and munching on a thin shaving of carrot, headphones now hung around his neck as he shamelessly watches them over the kitchen counter.

The man is an enigma, Shouichi swears.

Still, he gives out good advice. "Let's be real," Shouichi says frankly. "You're way, way smarter than you let people think. You could probably have tested out of high school before the entrance ceremony, and we both know it. If you really can't stand it…" He takes a deep breath. "I-I'm headed to Todai next year. We could go together." He fiddled with his pencil. "I mean, I know it might seem a little rash—"

He looks up and sees Haru staring at him, not in horror or exasperation or mourning, but in pure confusion. "…what? Why are you giving me that look?"

"Papa and Shou-chan's parents didn't tell you?" Haru asks, which has happened a lot over the course of their friendship. _A lot_ a lot.

"Whatever you're talking about, the answer is probably no," he sighs.

"We already have an apartment waiting for us a stop away from campus when first semester starts," Haru explains, perking up a little for the first time since she swept through the door in a restless storm of heartbreak and woe.

"…of course we do," says Shouichi in a tone halfway between delight and defeat. He turns back to look at her father, but the man has moved on to merrily chopping up a radish.

He gives up.

Shouichi just can't bring himself to be too upset about the happy bombshell; not when thinking about moving on and ditching Namimori and the remains of the painful, dogged pursuit of her first love in a suitably dramatic and healthy way are starting to put the ghost of a glimmer back in Haru's eyes like that.

Besides, for all he worries about his future almost-self's plans, it's still… _refreshing_ to get caught up in somebody else's machinations, without having to be part of the plotting and execution process.

* * *

Haru apparently decides to keep mum on the matter of skipping a grade and then skipping town entirely to live it up at college with Shouichi and grow as a person without being dragged into crazy mafia infighting until the last possible moment, which he would usually approve of on principle. Except Sawada Tsunayoshi and friends somehow find out on the day they are all set to move.

The whole motley crew stampedes the station like something out of a sappy, B-list movie while he and Haru are waiting for their train to pull in, their luggage already safely shipped ahead with the movers.

"H-Haru!" Sawada Tsunayoshi stammers out, breathing hard, and for all that he has grown taller, Shouichi isn't sure he's changed much from the meek boy Shouichi first met at all. "Are you… I mean… you're not _really_ leaving, are you?"

"…" Haru blinks, and the blatant surprise on her face almost seems enough to reassure her so-called other friends.

Yeah, okay, maybe Shouichi _is_ a little bitter. But it's on Haru's behalf, because she would never in a million years let herself feel that way towards them.

"Of course Haru is," she says, blunt instead of gentle due to her confusion at this sudden panic. "Haru and Shou-chan are heading out to start their college careers and embark on the road to adulthood!"

"I…" Shouichi almost feels a stab of pity at how lost Tsunayoshi looks. Almost. "But… I-I thought… I mean…"

 _You thought she'd linger by your side forever, loving you even without the barest shred of hope,_ Shouichi translates in his head. Or maybe this is the outcome he had feared for years and the true reason he had taken so long to answer Haru's feelings, if Shouichi wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Shouchi isn't feeling very charitable, though. He is _so_ bitter and he regrets nothing.

Luckily—or unfortunately, depending on how one viewed the whole matter—one of his marginally less socially inept companions takes over before Tsunayoshi can make any more of an ass of himself.

"Haha, aren't you moving a bit too early though, Haru? I mean, you're our age!" Yamamoto Takeshi flashes a winning grin their way, and Shouichi has to hold down a shudder at the way the taller, more fit boy's eyes cut at him, jovially suspicious and bright like the edge of a blade catching the light.

 _You aren't one of us,_ the star athlete's gaze seems to say. _How dare you._

 _She isn't either,_ Shouichi thinks petulantly, and has to fight a smile when Haru's answer echoes along similar lines.

"Haru took a few tests," she admits with a shrug. "It was always the plan to graduate with Shou-chan. There's no point in waiting the extra time, after all."

"Tch! Like a stupid woman like you could possibly graduate early!" Gokudera Hayato spits out, scowling so hard that a muscle in his cheek twitches.

 _Please,_ Shouichi reads in the vulnerable, defensive set of his shoulders. _Please don't do this. Don't leave._ He has been the most vocal, the most vicious of the group Shouichi has been tugging Haru away from, bit by bit, but it's the same sort of clingy enmity that Shouichi recognizes from his interactions with his own sister, when they squabble over chores or the bathroom.

He blinks, and there are suddenly two thigh-high assassins clutching at her legs and sobbing in their respective mother tongues. Two girls come forward to gently pry them away—Haru's once-rival for Tsunayoshi's affections and a quiet slip of a girl in an eye-patch who looks two steps from following the children's example—and behind them comes the entrance of the glamorous pink-haired woman Shouichi remembers from his initial peek into the madness that is the criminal underworld and the infant in the bespoke suit who sets all of Shouichi's primal instincts into a fearful frenzy.

"Haru told you all _months ago_ that she was going to Todai, hahi!" He hears his best friend exclaim, still trying to wrap her head around this little slice of melodrama.

"But Haru-chan!" The blonde rival—Shouichi can't, for the life of him, remember her name—pleads, tears in her eyes. "We thought you meant for next year; that you were just planning ahead!"

"Haru is sorry, Kyoko-chan," Kyoko, that's half of it. The surname is… something-kawa? She has an older brother, currently being lectured by station security in the background, but that helps surprisingly little. "But all the arrangements have been made. Haru's going, and that's that."

Still, Haru makes a round for last-minute hugs and murmured good-byes, managing to snag one from everybody. Some, like the children and the girls, cling as though they can keep her here, as if a full semester of rent and tuition is just that simple to walk away from. And maybe it is, for Mafiosi with friends in high places, but Haru's resolve is not so easily broken, as they should well know. Others, like Gokudera and Tsunayoshi, bear it uncomfortably and gently break away, as if burned by the finality of the act.

And then there are those, like Yamamoto and the pink-haired woman—Bianca, perhaps? His memory isn't exactly crystal clear when it came to that day—who whisper words of encouragement into her hair and squeeze her tight, but eventually she is left staring down the best-dressed toddler in the room. Heck, probably the best-dressed child in all of Namimori, if not Japan entirely.

"Come on, Reborn-chan." She holds her arms out in a silent invitation, with a rueful, private smile that Shouichi doesn't fully understand. It bothers him more than he thought it might. "Technically, you never did give me an answer to my request," she says, and there's something soft and kind and a little nostalgic in her voice.

There is a long, long moment of silence, and Tsunayoshi seems to be having heart palpitations of some sort in the interim. The boy—almost a young man, chronologically, but for some reason Shouichi still can't picture him as anything more than a boy—nearly keels over when Reborn actually hops into her embrace, letting her hug him with the strangest, scariest twist to his mouth that Shouichi has ever seen on anybody, let alone a baby.

Shouichi thinks it might be his attempt at a smile, and in that moment knows true terror.

"You should always rely on your _famiglia_ ," Reborn advises her, and no voice that high pitched has any right to sound so domineering.

 _She will once she finds them,_ Shouichi thinks, without really knowing why; he wants to keep himself and Haru out of that world, doesn't he? He nearly jumps out of his skin when Reborn's glossy dark eyes snap towards him, as though the tiny monster has actually heard his thoughts.

That's madness, naturally, but all the same he feels better when their train pulls up and she transfers Reborn back to Tsunayoshi, returning to Shouichi's side and waving farewell one last time, her other hand hooked securely in his own. Then she's shouldering her tote bag, handing over her ticket, and following Shouichi to their seats.

They let a stunned sort of silence settle until the train starts moving.

From their window, as the train picks up speed, they can see a certain white-haired boxer keeping pace and waving with the children braced on his shoulders until he is eventually outmatched, and just before the scenery totally blurs they both catch a glimpse of a dark, foreboding figure pulling away on a motorcycle.

"I had no idea they would care this much," she says quietly.

Her voice is surprised, and a little sad, but when he looks back at her there isn't a trace of regret in her face; only pensiveness. Shouichi lets out a silent breath, and for once does not feel guilty at all.

He thinks that, if it weren't for that fateful note he left himself—would leave himself? Might have one day left himself? Ugh, he _hates_ time-travel _—_ Haru might have never known any of them cared about her to this extent, even with their bonds untouched by his selfish machinations. The problem, Shouichi knows, is that Haru is simply too good of a friend. She's the type to slip seamlessly into somebody's life, and make it warmer and more fulfilling in the tiniest, most crucial of ways—but so gradually that the friend in question barely notices how precious she becomes to them.

If Shouichi hadn't been hyper-aware of her existence and actions from the start, he might have fallen into the same trap.

He thanks the alternate Shouichi who sent the note, suddenly, selfishly, then breaks the silence again with an awkward cough.

"So… Tokyo. That's going to be interesting."

Haru gives him a flat look at that vast understatement, but the ice is broken.

The rest of the ride is split between her usual brand of mayhem, speculation about the new life hurtling closer to them by the second, breaking open their snack supplies, and sleeping.

Shouichi's dreams are filled, briefly, with dark, glistening eyes cataloguing all the ways he could be killed. The dreams, unbeknownst to him until later, morph into something kinder and far more ridiculous around the time Haru's head slips down to rest on his shoulder.

* * *

The first time he opens their apartment door and finds a large wooden crate waiting outside for him, Shouchi has war flashbacks.

Literally; some of the suppressed memories of far-off, desolate futures are dredged up, dancing mockingly in front of his eyes and making his gut churn sickly before the delivery man coughs to get his attention and asks if he is Miura Haru-san, and if so can he please sign for the package.

"No, I'm Haru," his friend says, ducking around where he is half-collapsed against the open door to take the little clipboard and sign it with a flourish. They have been here for over two months and she has left the childish third-person speech behind her in Namimori; he's grateful for that, if only because he doesn't think the big city will automatically be so accepting of her eccentricities. "Have a good day!" She bids the man goodbye while Shouichi is reminiscing and begins heaving in the heavy crate, without even considering asking for his help.

That's fair. There's no contest as to which of them is more physically fit, after years of competitive gymnastics. He's reasonably sure she could bench-press him, if she wanted to.

"Did you order something?" He drifts along nervously in her wake, trying not to have a panic attack over what he now sees is a box made of cheaper-looking wood than the Bovino care-package that started everything.

"No, I have a pen-pal as extra credit for one of my classes. The International Relations one."

"Oh?" His stomach gives a burning throb. "Where from?"

 _Don't say Italy don't say Italy don't say Italy don't say—_

"France," Haru tells him brightly. "A region called Jura, in the countryside. She's an older woman, who runs an orchard. She has the cutest little grandson _ever_. Remind me to show you the pictures, sometime."

 _Thank God._

She pulls a crowbar out from underneath their couch and begins cracking open the package. Inside, there are—similar to the first, most traumatizing apology gift—a few bottles of what they determine, after some squinting at the hand-written labels, to be cider, some jars of apple jam, and a little oval picture frame with a pressed flower inside. Apple blossom, he guesses, though he has no way to be sure. Haru seems more taken by a sheaf of polaroid photographs included in an envelope marked with her name in elegant cursive, cooing excitedly and forcing him to admire the chubby-cheeked ten-to-twelve year old with green hair and dead eyes that bore damningly into Shouichi's very soul. He is also, for some reason, wearing a gigantic apple on his head.

"Cute," he obligingly lies through his teeth.

" _So_ cute," she sighs, and if there's an echo of wistfulness over other, even scarier children she hasn't seen in weeks and weeks, then who can really blame Shouichi for taking action?

"What are you sending her in return for all of this?" He hands back the photos, as guileless as possible. "Clothes?"

A terrifying glint swiftly overtakes the melancholy gleam that had been beginning to settle in her eyes, and Shouichi pats himself on the back even if it means that he'll have to take over dinner-duty while she buries herself in sketching out the designs dancing through her head. It's worth it, to keep her from getting too nostalgic for Namimori. The texts and e-mails have only just begun to become less frequent, as her so-called friends begin to understand the true pressure of their final year of high school.

He hangs the little apple blossom in the kitchen, and on a whim does a quick internet search on his phone about the language of flowers in Europe. 'Preference, better things to come, good fortune'—he's not a terribly superstitious person, but he'll take what good omens he can get these days, and he smiles faintly at the small pink flower every time he sees it afterwards.

It never gets easier, opening the door and seeing a new crate, once or twice a month, but opening it and hearing little tidbits about Madame Faustine and her little Safran and their idyllic provincial life each time helps soothe some of the sting. Maybe, he thinks one evening, his thoughts as bright and bubbling as the cider he and Haru have downed in celebration of finishing their first semester's worth of finals, maybe once Haru fixes everything they'll go and visit the two of them in France, as a sort of victory vacation.

Shockingly, it only occurs to Shouichi that Haru needs to actually meet the person that ruins everything in order to fix it all _after_ he comes home about a week later and finds the man himself perched on their couch, bare-chested and sporting a languid, amused smile as Haru fusses over him with her measuring tape. There is something damningly familiar about the scene—he thinks it's a slice of carrot cake from Haru's favorite bakery smeared over the shirt he can see soaking in the kitchen sink—and he pauses, swallowing once and trying not to vomit from sheer nerves.

"Oh, welcome home, Shou-chan!" Haru shoots him a quick smile over her shoulder. "This is Byakuran-san. We had a bit of a mishap."

"I'm back," he says neutrally when he's confident his voice won't shake, and finally unslings the guitar case from his shoulder. With Haru's encouragement, he's found a part-time job playing at a local café to keep in practice. After a frantic moment of uncertainty, he falls back on his own experience. "Is he staying for dinner?"

"Certainly, if you're offering," Byakuran shifts, crossing his legs and looking between them with unsettling fascination. "It seems like my shirt might be a lost cause, and I don't think Haru-chan is willing to let me wander out into the cold December night without one."

"She wouldn't let me bike off into the balmy September afternoon without a replacement when _we_ met," Shouichi says, toeing out of his shoes and moving to the kitchen. "So you're probably right on that count." He brushes his fingers over the chintzy little silver frame of the apple blossom where they can't see, hands shaking in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with the chilly walk home from his workplace. Then he takes a deep, quiet breath and goes to check the fridge. He pauses, staring. "…Haru, why do we have so much sushi?"

"… _because_." Haru says evasively. "Ah, that's the last measurement, Byakuran-san. I'll be right back; I just need to grab my sewing kit and some fabric."

"Haru?"

"Yamamoto-kun came to visit!" She called after ducking into her room, safe from his judgmental glare. "He scares you so I made sure you were out while he came by this time."

"I am _not_ scared of Yamamoto Takeshi," Shouichi lies, because they currently have a very obviously amused audience. He is, in fact, _terrified_ by Yamamoto Takeshi. Perhaps he should be more concerned with her enduring links to the young man who slings around live explosives, or that horrifying baby in the fedora, or the little Bovino boy who got him into his current situation, but by far it's Yamamoto who terrifies him the most on some primal level. It's because he's so like Haru—bright and fun and easy to be around on the surface, and inhumanly devoted and capable just beneath that—he's _so much like Haru_ that it feels, ironically enough, like a crime that Shouichi was the one Haru chose to follow in the end, rather than Yamamoto and his group of friends. It isn't a romantic connection, but the two of them have an understanding, nurtured by shared early morning workouts and brilliant, unfaltering smiles and easy acceptance of criminal activity for the sake of their dear friends.

Yamamoto is the only one that makes the effort to come visit Haru with anything resembling regularity, now free from his team obligations due to Namimori's third-year policies, and each time he meets Shouichi with a bright smile, a hard clap on the shoulder, and the jolliest breed of resentment in his eyes. Depending on how well he takes to being an active member of a crime syndicate, Shouichi is rapidly becoming more and more concerned that the younger man may one day kill him in cold blood and then swoop in to be Haru's crying shoulder at his funeral.

"Of course," Haru humors him, swanning back out of her room with a new, sleek black button-up in her arms, which she hands to Byakuran as his eyebrows shoot up.

"That was…" His eyebrows inch higher as he shrugs into it and fastens it up, rolling his shoulders and enjoying what is undoubtedly a perfect fit. "Astonishingly fast."

"That's Haru, pretty much," Shouichi comments, more comfortable with this monster than the cheerful, steadfastly friendly and respectful Yamamoto. "She's great with sewing. All handicrafts, really."

"Oh, hush," Haru huffs, brushing past him with a bump of her hip to grab one of the meticulously wrapped sushi platters from the refrigerator. "Shou-chan's the really amazing one—he's double-majoring in Engineering and Music Composition."

"Fashion and International Studies don't exactly constitute a light course load either," Shouichi bumps her back, rummaging around their cupboards. "Uh, B-Bykauran-san?" He trips over his own tongue briefly. "We've got a bunch of cider—alcoholic and normal. Other than that, there's water, some milk—uh, actually, no, scratch that." He squints at the carton and gives it a little shake. "There's like two sips left in this. Yamamoto Takeshi could've at least finished it off, if he was going to drink this much…"

"Quit being catty, Shou-chan," Haru admonishes him, but does not contradict him. "I'll use up what's left when I make breakfast."

This isn't the first time Yamamoto has done something like this, after all. Is it paranoid of him to suspect it's some sort of low-key harassment? The last time Yamamoto visited, he somehow used up nearly all of Shouichi's toothpaste when he stayed the night. The tube had been _half-full_ the previous morning, so Shouichi doesn't think he's just imagining the passive-aggressive assault.

"Whatever the two of you are having is fine by me, Shou-chan." Byakuran says, uncrossing his legs and standing to peer at them with even greater levels of fascination. The endearment rolls off his tongue with unsettling ease, sounding so natural that Shouichi doesn't even think to correct him.

"Well, if you're drinking with us we should get a futon ready too," he says, unthinking.

Haru chokes on her own giggles as she pulls down some plates, and Byakuran's amusement swells like a balloon.

"My," says their guest. "Should I have some expectations?"

Shouichi blanches. "No!" He bursts out. "I—wh… no. I just, I meant—Haru, she's not going to be any more willing to let you wander out into the cold December night drunk than she is willing to let you out shirtless! I didn't… _there's nothing to expect."_

"Nothing but fantastic hospitality," Haru covers for him, shoulders still trembling with poorly hidden mirth despite her wide, innocent gaze. She is definitely her father's daughter.

Shouichi shuts his mouth and grabs some glasses, before he can make things any worse. They all settle down at the low table in front of the couch, and Byakuran's gaze has a physical weight to it, this close. Shouichi isn't sure if he's more comfortable when he feels it himself, or when he _doesn't_ and it's bearing down on Haru alone. Haru, naturally, is _entirely_ comfortable with the situation, gaily engaging Byakuran in a discussion about his likes, dislikes, studies, hobbies, and career goals.

"I'm the future Thirteenth Head of the Gesso Famiglia," Byakuran informs them, nonchalantly sipping at his cider. "The cousin who most recently inherited the title was diagnosed with a terminal illness, so a lot of my current time is going into learning how to run the syndicate."

"Of course you are," Shouichi sighs, because _of course he is,_ and Haru squeezes his knee underneath the table. _Be nice,_ he can practically hear her say. It is a bit too callous, even for him, he can admit. "Sorry about your cousin."

"Oh no," he waves off their concern. "I've never even met the man, don't worry."

Oh, pleasant.

"Well then, in that case, here's to his health," Haru tops up each of their drinks and raises her own in a toast. Haru is a _nice_ girl, the way Yamamoto is a _nice_ boy. Byakuran just watches her for a moment, before something wicked and deep snaps through his eyes and he gamely taps the lip of his glass to each of theirs, even though Shouichi's had only been reluctantly dragged up by Haru.

Shouichi is pretty sure the foreigner has just decided that he's going to keep them, and quietly despairs.


	2. how does your garden grow

**AN:** _Part 2, where Haru is every bit as bad as Byakuran, in some senses._

* * *

It's nearly two months later, on Valentine's Day, when Haru first starts making good on the faith Shouichi's could-be self first put in her with respect to derailing Byakuran's destructive nature.

She does it by giving him a _yakuza lawyer,_ which is just… Shouichi has no words. None at all.

"How did you even meet him?" He hisses to her in the kitchen, peering over to where Byakuran is blinking with sleepy delight from their couch—his, really, more than anything these days—at the flashy man sitting at their little kotatsu in rigid seiza, staring right back at him with a glittering, enraptured gaze. Maeda Kikyo is a very pretty man, so there's any number of ways that he could have caught Haru's eye; first and foremost, she might have simply taken issue with his white suit and flagrantly paisley shirt.

He notices that the man's suit is missing its jacket, and a terrible suspicion forms.

Haru fidgets in front of the fridge, where her chocolate is still setting. "There was a big sale at my favorite bakery today," she mumbles. "I wanted to buy some extra to send to Kyoko-chan and Chrome-chan."

"Haru, oh my _god,"_ he says, passing a hand over his eyes. "Don't throw cakes at yakuza."

"Haru didn't throw it, hahi!" She scowls at him, cheeks puffing out. "…I. _I_ didn't throw it." She coughs, calming down out of bashfulness at the slip. "I got jostled by the crowd and we both went down. Kikyo-san was very understanding, but I wanted to try and compensate him anyways."

"Haru, this is _Tokyo._ There is no Hibari Kyouya lurking around to put the fear of god into the local gangs; that could have been really dangerous."

Haru bites her lip, and his stomach burns like hellfire. Which makes sense, because he's always been reasonably sure that Hibari Kyouya is in fact a creature summoned up from the very gates of the Inferno itself.

"No," he says, very quietly. "Oh god, _nooo._ "

"It's going to be a busy night," she says evasively. "And—and Kikyo-san seems very nice."

"We're harboring a criminal while Hibari Kyouya is loose in _the most noisy, crowded city in the country,"_ Shouichi says, just to get the damning words out in the open. "He's not going to have a group to belong to in the morning, is he?"

"…Byakuran-san seems taken with him?" Haru offers, sheepish.

"You're unbelievable," he sighs, beginning to rhythmically bump his head against the wall beneath the apple blossom. He glances at the sink again, and catches sight of the faint remainders of a large, probably masculine footprint on the back of the soaking jacket, sees what appear to be the ingredients for high-quality hamburger steak not yet put away, and pauses mid-bump to give his best friend a shrewd look.

She bites her lip, then sets her jaw and raises her chin minutely, stubbornly, completely unrepentant.

"You always wait until the day _after_ Valentine's Day to raid cake shops once the prices fall," he remembers finally, keeping his voice low. He finds himself horrifically, perilously close to an ambiguous, warm emotion he refuses to acknowledge as pride. Sure, she might be growing up enough to sacrifice cake and money. Sure, she's branching out and trying to make new friends. But she still probably stalked a member of the local yakuza, assaulted him with unreasonably priced baked goods, and then proceeded to essentially _put out a hit on the man's boss and group_ , because he was nice to her and was apparently being mistreated. That's not okay.

They're supposed to be avoiding this world, aren't they?

…shit. He's still impressed. Haru is _devious_ when she wants something. He had almost allowed himself to forget that, amidst the perfect storm of drinking, sweet-binging, and hardcore late-night Jenga tournaments that their frien—that their _completely benign and shallow association_ with Byakuran has turned into.

He'll have to put a stop to this, somehow. This, he realizes grimly, is the first shifting pebble in a highly slippery slope. If he lets her keep this one, it will only encourage her. Byakuran is a necessary evil—in the sense that he needs to first be present in their lives to be vanquished from it—and so Shouichi can't complain about him stealing their couch, or badgering Shouchi to play some game or one of his embarrassingly amateur songs, or strutting around in Haru's newest designs, or kissing them on the cheeks whenever he greets or leaves them and claiming it's an Italian thing even though he aims for the apex of their _ears_ and _jaws_ every time _, that absolute liar_ , or dropping in on their classes with the pure, sugary nonsense he dares to call 'brain food', or shuffling around their apartment in a wife-beater and his boxers at the crack of noon while he squints, disheveled and disgruntled, at some new e-mail from his sick cousin imparting criminal wisdom, one hand fluffing his already magnificent bedhead while he drapes himself over whichever of them is closest to leech off their warmth, or—

"Oh my god," Shouichi breathes, staring past Haru into the ungodly abyss of unwanted realizations.

Maeda Kikyo is not the first pebble. Shouichi is already so far down the slope, he doesn't even know which way is up anymore.

"Our lease is up in a few months, anyways," Haru says, patting his shoulder and picking up his train of thought with unsettling, amused ease. "We should look into getting a bigger apartment."

"Ngh," he whines, dropping his head against the crook of her neck in numb defeat. She cards her fingers through the fluffy hair at his nape—he's been using Byakuran's shampoo for _months,_ how did he never realize that they were already in so deep?—and croons out vaguely reassuring noises, cradling him with one hand and assembling a simple evening meal with the other.

 _Goals and accomplishments_ , he thinks, and then for some reason he remembers this morning, when the three of them woke up underneath the kotatsu, tangled and warm and—

"We'll probably need at least four rooms," he forces himself to say, cutting that thought down before it has a chance to meander towards any sort of conclusion.

* * *

They don't actually get a new apartment once their lease is up, even if Kikyo has basically moved in and has, for some reason known only to himself, decided to become their pseudo-butler.

Instead, Byakuran drags them off on what he promises will be a grand tour of Europe in its entirety.

Somehow, Shouichi can't even muster up a shred of surprise that their first stop is a dilapidated village somewhere in rural Greece. For a funeral, naturally, even though Shouichi is nearly one hundred percent certain Byakuran has never met the deceased, middle-aged farmer in his life.

"D'we know each other?" The dead man's foster son—a scruffy, understandably glum-faced guy who calls himself Ródi—squints at them suspiciously after the writes are carried out. He does not, Shouichi notices from a cursory glance at the other villagers heading back to their homes and fields, look especially Greek, so it's not as outlandish a question as it might seem on the surface. He also has that whole 'deathly aura of intimidation' that Shouichi not-so-fondly recalls from his incidental meetings with Sawada's group. And he apparently knows Japanese for some reason.

He's also as tightly wound as an E-string one pluck away from snapping, which is highly alarming.

"Not at all," Byakuran says blithely, as Kikyo fusses over arranging the white chrysanthemums they brought for the meager little grave. Shouichi knows instinctively he is lying, and has no idea why. "But you see, you've been swirling those massive Flames of yours around yourself so desperately that I felt it prudent to arrange the trip over myself, before dear Haru-chan tore a door off our car and bolted here on foot."

Haru _has_ been on edge since they entered the country, Shouichi can admit. She's been restless, always rolling her shoulders and staring hard outside the windows of their hotels and taxis and rentals, as though looking for somebody who called out to her across a crowded room.

Out of pure self-defense, once he realized that they were well and truly stuck in a downward spiral, Shouichi brushed up on his knowledge of Flames. Haru had told him what she knew, in bits and pieces over the years, but Byakuran's mysterious cousin has far more information at his disposal, and Byakuran likes to read out loud. Even when they're trying to study. _Especially_ then, if he feels particularly neglected and Kikyo's doting attention just isn't cutting it, on that given day.

The biggest thing—the thing that made him realize there was no escape, just like that day years before, biking on the hills—is how the different Flames can Resonate. It deserves the capitalization; from what he knows, it's a strong, sudden chemistry, the kind that doesn't make a relationship all on its own, but the kind that certainly speeds up the process and leaves the end result rock solid. Sometimes it's romantic, and sometimes it's antagonistic, and most commonly the process is mentioned in reference to a full Harmonization—that is to say, when one of each Flame type Resonates with a Sky Flame user.

A Sky Flame user like _Byakuran_ , for example, but he's not the center of this issue, despite all implications to the contrary.

Despite what popular literature on the subject might suggest—research only done at the behest and coin of powerful _famiglia_ , over the years—full Harmonization isn't all that common, due to the relative rarity of pure Sky Flame users. Instead, more often than not 'incomplete' Harmonizations pop up, between the other types of Flames.

So, this is about Haru. Everything is, for Shouichi, but this especially. Haru is a Lightning Flame user, which he knows because for some god-awful reason she was once _hit by a Dying Will Bullet_ and that's as much like cracking an airtight seal on a bottle as it can be a legitimately life-threatening situation. There's no going back. But really, the point is this:

Haru is a Lightning Flame user. Lightning Flame users, at their core, are protective. They are well suited for defense, either bodily or through some sort of barrier creation, and to be honest, that suits Haru perfectly. She's the crazy girl who would throw herself bodily in front of a child if she thought they might be in danger, somebody who would do anything for a friend, the type of person who literally bribed and threw a monster of a man at a local, legitimately dangerous gang because she decided that she wanted to keep Kikyo. She's very much the quintessential Lightning, is what he's getting at with this.

Lightnings historically have particularly tempestuous Resonations with Storms, to skirt a truly terrible pun. They can be vicious enemies or the closest of friends, and in many cases flip the spectrum around at a moment's notice.

In hindsight it gives some rationale as to how she and Gokudera Hayato had managed to be eternally at one another's throats while simultaneously remaining, in the loosest definition, friends. Byakuran just said _'you've been swirling those massive Flames of yours around yourself so desperately'_ and all Shouichi can feel is gut-churning dread because what does that mean? He's stronger than Gokudera Hayato, even Shouichi can sense that much, but what does that mean _for Haru?_

His friend makes a small, wounded noise and shifts while he's still thinking furiously, and it takes him a few seconds to notice that she's moving. His fingers brush the back of her blouse, just a beat too slow to stop her as she darts towards Ródi, the man himself taking a wary step back.

Shouichi feels like he's having a stroke, everything slowing down and going blurry for a moment of pure, unrestrained fear, a panicked moment of _he's so strong,_ _ **Byakuran**_ _thinks he's strong, is this one of those future cities that were-will-be destroyed, oh god, Haru, oh god Haru_ _ **no**_ —and then there's a cool hand weaving into his hair, and Byakuran's breath is hot against his cheek, jarring things back into some semblance of normality.

"Watch," the man who Shouichi is supposed to stop orders, and he can't do anything but obey.

Haru zips towards Ródi, and Shouichi's breath catches into a wheezy, silent 'no', but then she collides with the man and _climbs him like a goddamn tree_ , wrapping herself around him like a koala with abandonment issues, pressing her face against his stubbly cheek as she keens in a way that is raw and beyond language, a type of frustrated sadness that makes Shouichi's heart hurt because he never wants to see her sad, never wants to hear her make that sort of heartbreaking, heart _broken_ sound, and—

They're crying, he realizes suddenly.

Ródi's body language shifts the moment she makes contact, his arms snapping around her and caging her tight even as he stumbles to his knees. Haru is openly sobbing, fingers clenching desperately in the back of his worn and threadbare shirt. He isn't so much weeping as he is _howling_ , like a beast, like a maelstrom, like a—like a child who just lost everything, Shouichi realizes, and things rapidly click into place. He can barely breath, the air around them is so hot, stinging at the back of his throat and his eyes as the Flames that had impressed Byakuran so much crushed down on them all with the weight of Ródi's grief.

"Haru-chan has such a giving heart," Kikyo murmurs, one hand cradling his cheek as he watches the scene before them, and Shouichi feels Byakuran's lips curve against the shell of his ear.

They leave Greece within two days, a freshly falsified passport and some new clothes allowing 'Miura Zakuro' to follow along with them.

* * *

They take a pit stop in France next, in Nice, and then they head to the orchard in Jura, which is actually Shouichi's idea because Haru is still looking a little raw around the edges, like she wants to rip herself open and wrap them all up in everything she is, to keep them safe. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the newly-named Zakuro follows her around like a grumpy shadow and frequently uses her lap as his pillow and sucks up her attention as though _she's_ the older one in that particular, peculiar dynamic. Nothing at all.

Shouichi insists he is not jealous.

"Well _I_ am," Byakuran tells him bluntly, when the other three—well, Haru, with a bemused Kikyo and Zakuro in tow—head off to look at the local flea market. "I like Zakuro plenty—" and here Shouichi very carefully does not remind him that they were supposed to have only just met the man, "—but you see, I am feeling neglected. Haru-chan belongs to everyone, but we were here first. Fix it, Shou-chan."

There's something wrong with that statement, but a niggle of some self-preserving, primal instinct tells him to drop it, because Byakuran's gaze is sharp and tense. He occasionally has what Shouichi and Haru privately refer to as Bad Days, where he claws his way back to consciousness wild-eyed and sallow-cheeked, often before falling ill. He twines himself around them most often around those times, desperately, like he's a ship and they're the only things keeping him from being ripped out to sea and capsized.

"…well, there's one thing we could do," he says hesitantly, and then shoves his cowardice aside for once in his life and twines his fingers through Byakuran's fist until it loosens into a mere vice-grip around his poor, poor metacarpals. "I mean, she's still going to ditch us because he's a kid and she goes _nuts_ over kids, but it should jar her back into her normal groove."

"Good," Byakuran hisses out a breath and rolls his shoulder, but doesn't relinquish Shouichi's hand.

Shouichi says nothing, cowardice returning with its good friend denial hitching a ride on the way back. This is nothing, he tells himself. This means nothing.

Haru is delighted with the idea of going to Madame Faustine's orchard. She is delighted when she finally gets to embrace her penpal, even if Zakuro hangs back and sulks before the old woman bustles over and starts mothering him herself, plying him with food and milk and praising the obvious signs of field-labor she can see so readily on him. Haru is _ecstatic_ to meet Safran, and Shouichi wants to run straight back to Nice as soon as he claps eyes on the boy. Thing. The Thing wearing a boy's skin.

"What is that," he hisses to Byakuran, the hair on the nape of his neck standing on end. _"What is that?"_ The child's eyes had been dead in the photographs, but in the flesh they are dark and dull with something abyssal and twitching, as though somebody had reached into the void and squelched around until it was a ruined mess of incomprehensible viscera. And then crammed it into the shape of a child, which is apparently enough for Haru to not care about how intrinsically _wrong_ the Thing actually is.

Shouichi should have known. This is Reborn all over again, except somehow worse.

"I have no earthly idea," Byakuran tells him, looking insanely pleased at the words. _But I_ _ **want**_ _it,_ his gaze makes hauntingly, horrifyingly clear, boring hungrily across the field where Haru is running her hands over that ridiculous apple hat, making indiscernible but obviously impressed comments the entire time.

"Ah, Fran?" Madame Faustine sighs in her fluttery, accented Japanese and shakes her head. "It's a bit of an embarrassing story, I'm afraid. You see, my daughter lost her first pregnancy—terrible tragedy. The poor dear didn't even make it halfway, and she… did not take it well. She took some rather… _unconventional_ measures, shall we say, to ensure a healthy birth the next time."

"What," says Shouichi, his stomach knotting itself tighter with every moment. "You make it sound like she made a deal with the devil, or something."

"One of them, yes," the old woman agrees, sipping a mug of chilled cider and smiling pleasantly. "Only, she's never really taken to the family craft all that well; the ritual left her dead and poor Lord Belphegor doesn't remember a _thing_ about what he truly is."

Byakuran, for some unknown, _absolutely insane_ reason _,_ looks positively euphoric at this revelation, as though he has just heard the punch line of the greatest joke in the entire world instead of confirmation that a literal denizen of Hell is getting a piggyback ride from Haru as they speak. "Are you telling me," he says slowly, every syllable dripping with the delight visibly dancing in his purple eyes. "That your… your _Fran_ , his true name is _Belphegor?"_ He sniggers to himself. "Forgive me. I mean, of course, _Prince_ Belphegor. The chief demon of Sloth itself."

"Just the one," Madame Faustine agrees amicably, and Byakuran absolutely _loses it_ , laughs so hard he bends in half, literally crying with mirth and clinging to Shouichi for support.

"This normal for him?" Shouichi hears Zakuro grunt, before the scruffy man sets to work on what looks like a truly delicious apple tart.

"Not at all," Kikyo says, and then adds brightly, "I'm so glad to see both Byakuran-sama and Haru-chan in such high spirits."

"Better'n all the weepy shit 'n glaring," Zakuro concurs through a thick mouthful of apple filling, before continuing to stuff his face. Shouichi wants to remind the man that he _caused_ said 'weepy shit' in the first place, but thinks better of it because Haru and the _literal demon child_ are heading back towards them.

"I wanna keep him _forever,_ hahi!" Haru gushes, rubbing her cheek against Fran's with obvious adoration. The creature's eyes look marginally less horrifying in that moment, which sends an icicle of dread stabbing through Shouichi's gut.

"Let's," wheezes Byakuran, using Shouichi's shoulder to heave himself upright again. "Oh, Haru-chan, what a marvelous idea." He wipes at his eyes, still chuckling to himself, and Shouichi wants to scream.

It's a _terrible_ idea.

But predictably enough, when they leave France, there is indeed a not-child numbered among them. Shouichi despairs, and resolves to never be alone with Fran, ever, if he can possibly help it. Horrific hellspawn are the last thing he needs in his life.

* * *

Until the day he dies—possibly even past that—Shouichi will swear up and down that Daisy's terrifying entrance into their lives is entirely Fran's fault.

He has no idea _how,_ exactly, but it is. It has to be. Somehow.

No matter what Haru says in the aftermath, he just can't accept that _pure happenstance_ is what leads their rental car to break down half a mile from a secluded mental asylum in the sprawling English moors. In the middle of a vicious storm that pretty much flooded the road and forced them to slog over for shelter. In the creepy ivy-strewn mental asylum.

The creepy ivy-strewn mental asylum that had been, not even forty-eight hours before their muddy and sodden arrival, _coincidentally_ taken over by some insane remnant of the now-defunct Estraneo _famiglia_.

Shouichi plays video games and watches horror movies, usually because Haru and Byakuran force him to. He knows it's always some satanic force that drags the poor protagonists into nightmarish situations like this. He patently refuses to believe Fran is totally innocent in their involvement in this fiasco.

It doesn't really matter _what_ he believes, really, because no matter what leads them there they still choose to go inside. They go inside, and everything changes. Forever.

"We're going to kill whoever did this," Haru whispers when they do, like a promise, like a scream.

Shouichi is too busy hunching over and throwing up in the corner from the sight of the torn-apart and stitched-together, modified corpses they find waiting for them in the lobby—children, he thinks, hysterically calm, it _of course_ it has to be a fucking asylum for children—to see her face. But he can see Kikyo's calm gaze shutter and go dark, can feel Zakuro's unseen, omnipresent Flames go dense and hatefully hot. He can't see Byakuran's face, as the man pulls Haru close and rocks her like a baby while she teeters on the knife's edge between heartbroken tears and homicidal rage, and he has no idea where Fran is, only the vague, hunted sense of having something ghoulish lurking behind him.

He's thankful for that, at least.

"Of course," Byakuran says, his voice soft but unyielding. "But, Haru-chan, I'm not sure—"

There's a soft crackling noise, and despite the bile still prickling at the back of his throat, Shouichi tastes mint. He unsteadily straightens up to find that Byakuran has released Haru, wisely, and that she is pale, trembling, and sparking like a broken socket, which is new.

" _I'm not going back to the car,"_ Haru says, and Byakuran hands his arms in surrender.

"Alright, alright. I just want to make sure everybody is safe." He says that, and then he pulls a gun out of his jacket, and hands it to Shouichi which is just—

"What?" He says, nearly dropping it. "No, thank you, I mean— _what?!"_

"No, Shouichi-sama, you hold it like this," Kikyo steps forward to rearrange his terrified grip on the _illegally concealed weapon_ , pulling a second one out of his own. "Also, this is the safety. It's very important. I just flicked it off, so don't touch it yet," Kikyo tells him, like Shouichi is going to so much as twitch a finger near the trigger. "Byakuran-sama, I really do think we should have spent a day at a shooting range with them."

"Hindsight," Byakuran shrugs, with a flash of something rueful and self-recriminating flitting through his eyes.

Haru is clutching a knitting needle in her hand, and it looks sharper than it should, and _it's_ sparking too, and Shouichi feels like his stomach is devouring itself with great, juicy enthusiasm. He doesn't know what to do. It feels like something tiny and smushed into the very back of his brain is trying to scream, tickling the very edges of his comprehension, warning him that he has missed so many chances to turn back but he is now on the most precarious precipice of all—

Some feathered monstrosity bursts through the receptionist window, near Haru.

There's a loud, thunderous crack, and a heavy thud.

Shouichi lowers the smoking barrel and pushes his glasses up with trembling fingers, eyes wide and chest heaving.

"My elbows hurt," he says, numbly. His voice sounds soft in his ears, and he isn't sure if that's because the gunshot temporarily deafened him or because he's in shock. He had whipped up the gun and aimed out of pure reflex after years of arcade games, pulling the trigger before he could think much more than _near Haru_ , and really, all the joints in his arms hurt. But that's all he feels.

"That would be the recoil," Kikyo informs him, looking about two steps away from a polite golf clap. Byakuran is looking at Shouichi as though he has never truly seen the younger man before.

"Shou-chan isn't supposed to be that cool," Fran comments, tangibly suspicious. "Are you an imposter?" The boy crouches down and pokes what, from the tattered scrubs, had probably once been a nurse or orderly of some point, and now looked like somebody had given making their own Quetzalcoatl the old college try. The skull is neatly blown out, and the creature's momentum had carried it even as it hit the floor, leaving a gruesome streak of blood and some other viscous liquid he doesn't want to think about in its wake.

Shouichi takes one look at his handiwork, and then bends over and vomits again.

"Nevermind," Fran says, apparently satisfied that he is still the same old uncool Shouichi.

A large hand claps him hard on the back, nearly making him spew for a third time. "Good reflexes," Zakuro says, and then the older man heaves him upright and takes the gun out of Shouichi's shaking hands just in time for Haru to slam into him, displaying some vastly superior reflexes.

She's still sparking, but he doesn't flinch away, and is not at all surprised to find that when the little jolts hit his skin, they don't actually sting. He thinks vaguely of Byakuran's crushing grip back in Nice, but then Haru starts talking and he shakes off the incoherent musings for the vastly more important here and now.

"Sorry, hahi," Haru mumbles against his shoulder. "Sorry, Shou-chan, I know you didn't—you've never—because of me, you—"

"Haru," he says, pressing a hand against her back and feeling something warm and thick oozing over his numb acceptance. "It's fine." He paused, and swallowed. "Well, not really. But," he huffs out a laugh, high and soft. "I'm a wimp, and a coward, you know? If I wasn't going to follow you this far, I would have run away years ago." He thinks of a hill, of hands squeezing his shoulder and an unfaltering smile, and squeezes her tight. "Maybe if we hurry we can save at least one or two kids," he says, to sidestep the issue because this is not the time or place to finally address the criminal elephant in the room that is their future career path. Byakuran has never asked anything of them, and neither he nor Haru has ever made any promise of any sort.

But he can still feel the gun in his palm, and when Haru pulls back from his shoulder there's a glint of green in her eyes and his shirt feels freshly starched and dryer-warm despite the rumpled state the past day of travel had left it in.

"I love you," Haru tells him, fierce and honest, and bright-eyed even beneath the green. She presses her lips to his, brief and hard, then steps away and begins moving towards the heavy doors leading to the rest of the asylum.

Shouichi's brain sputters to a halt, but somehow his mouth carries on without him. "I've never thought of you like a sister," he babbles.

"I know," Haru tosses over her shoulder as she moves past Kikyo and Zakuro, who are glancing spastically between the two of them and Byakuran, who is apparently entirely absorbed doing something with his phone. "I don't make the same mistakes twice, hahi."

"I'm staying," Fran tells her bluntly, his apple-hat suddenly turning dark and mottled like some living creature's camouflage when she pauses in front of him.

"Fine," Haru sighs, not phased in the least, but levels a finger at him. "But you stay behind one of us at all times, okay?"

Fran nods, and they finally move forward—even Shouichi, whose brain reboots enough for stiff ambulatory movements. The fluffy, giddy panic swelling in his chest dies down as soon as they do, because there are more beast-creature-people in the halls, either dead or in various states of dying. Shouichi hasn't taken a biology class since graduating high school, but even he can tell that their bodies are trying and failing to adapt to new bones and organs that were never meant to be fused together. Each of them has a small, notched metal plate in their chests.

They follow the groans and whimpers, the low snarls and fading whines, occasionally pausing to put down a particularly unfortunate genetic mash-up until they reach a large atrium.

 _Boss stage,_ a tenaciously nerdy fragment of his brain whispers, and he fights the urge to hit himself. This is very much not the time.

There's a large Ping-Pong table at the center of the room, with a boy strapped down and a man standing over him in bloody scrubs.

"Do you see, Doctor Koenig?" The man is exultant, gesturing at the boy whose open chest cavity he's inspecting. "I told you! Didn't I tell you? I _told_ you!" He's a young man, with blond hair and bright eyes, possibly even handsome, except the manic grin stretched across his face is highly unsettling. "I knew it was the right place, this time!"

His audience is a middle-aged man, unwashed, unshaven, wrapped in a straightjacket and chained to a nearby pillar. The aforementioned Koenig has an airplane's worth of bags beneath his eyes, and an expression of complete defeat.

"For God's sake, Gelb," he croaks out. "It's enough. It's enough already, please. This is madness—these children, their caretakers—all for one boy—"

"The perfect specimen," Gelb corrects him, prodding something inside the boy with a fond expression. The boy stares up at the ceiling with a blank gaze that makes Shouichi's gut churn sickly. "A boy who's been a boy for nearly _thirty years_ , Koenig! And to think, you wanted to run off and tell Verde, letting him snatch away this golden opportunity!"

"He's a _boy!"_ Koenig shouts, his voice cracking like old, weathered wood. "This isn't… Gelb, your father has been dead for years, please just stop. _Stop._ I sheltered you, when your Family fell, didn't I?" His voice turns desperate. "You were a good assistant. I didn't teach you… I didn't teach you my theories and techniques for this—this—this _slaughter_. This _perversion._ These are not Koenig Boxes."

"No," Gelb agrees. "These are my _Carnage_ Boxes and they are _magnificent_. Doctor Koenig, I truly am grateful for all you've done for me but this—" He makes an expansive gesture at the room, the boy, the corpses littering the room. "Letting Skull de Mort slip through the Estraneo's fingers has always been my father's greatest shame, yes. But Koenig, my good man, my father is _dead_ , along with the rest of that short-sighted Family. This isn't some frivolous account of sons taking over the debts and obligations of their fathers. This is for _me._ This is my _moment!"_

"As fascinating as this all is," Byakuran says, strolling into the flickering fluorescent lights, only half of which remained unscathed from the short-lived monstrosities with flight capability. "I'm afraid your _moment_ is rather inconvenient for us."

"Who—" Gelb spins around, and focuses a snarling, red-eyed glare about sixteen feet to their right, at another doorway. Shouichi suspects Fran again, and the boy squares his shoulders in something a little prouder than his usual slouch when they all turn to look at him. "Who the hell are you?"

"Don't worry about it," Byakuran assures the madman, switching his expectant gaze to Zakuro, who heaves a sigh but shuffles forward, flexing his fingers idly along the way.

"Well, whatever. Even if I finally have my ideal specimen, a few more test subjects is nothing to— _AUGH!"_ Gelb's sneering is cut off as soon as Zakuro claps his large palm over the other man's face, wreathing it in bright red flames. Which is… new? Maybe not, Shouichi reflects, since Zakuro looks relatively bored while _disintegrating a man's face_. Maybe he did that all the time in his poor little Greek village. Maybe it's a cultural thing—they lived near a volcanic mountain, didn't they? He feels like modern-day human sacrifice had a decent chance of actually being a thing, given that he is literally living a horror video game at the moment.

Maybe accepting the mafia thing on more than a subconscious level has finally driven him insane, Shouichi thinks, reviewing those last few thoughts with a small frown. His grip on Haru's arm slackens for a moment as he contemplates this chilling possibility, and before he can realize his mistake she's off like a shot, skidding to a stop beside the makeshift operating table. She looks down at the boy, cut and spread open, and makes a wounded noise low in her throat.

"Zakuro, rip his hands off," she says, in a voice that sends shivers down Shouichi's spine. But not in a bad way, which lends some strength to his insanity theory. Zakuro just grunts in assent and grabs one of the bloody hands scrabbling against him, using his free hand to grip a bony wrist as he lights up a second clump of visible Storm Flames.

"Are you an angel?" A breathless, creepy voice drifts over, and Shouichi realizes that the boy has been conscious the entire time and is now staring at Haru from behind his messy green hair with dark, shining eyes.

"No, sweetie," Haru says in English, bending down to gently smooth that hair out of his face. "I'm Haru."

"'M Daisy," the boy slurs. "Have you seen my rabbit? A monster ripped it up."

As the rest of them drift over, Shouichi can literally see Daisy's heart and lungs pulsate around a small metal box, bare to all the elements. Luckily, there's nothing left in his stomach to throw up, so he just silently gags and removes his glasses so that the world goes blurry and he can't notice any more fine details.

"Tell you what, Daisy," Haru says, in a terribly gentle voice. "I'm good at sewing, so I'll fix your bunny right up for you."

"If you would be kind enough to unbind me," comes the creaky, uncertain voice of Koenig. "I'd like to fix that boy up, myself."

"Zakuro?" Byakuran calls, draping an arm over Shouichi's slack shoulders as he takes back his gun.

"Ugh, fine," complains Zakuro, and then there's a wet, meaty thud as he lets Gelb's twitchy corpse fall to the linoleum.

"Can the next one not be a creepy child," Shouichi begs Byakuran, too tired to pretend he isn't at least somewhat wise to the other man's dangerous, insane game for once. "Please?"

Byakuran laughs quietly, and presses a kiss to his temple. "Okay, Shou-chan. Since you asked so nicely."

* * *

After the asylum is taken care of—Byakuran had been texting the Gesso wet-works branch, while Souichi and Haru had their little moment—they all end up heading to Italy. Daisy is ten times clingier than Zakuro ever was, but Haru keeps a hand free to tangle with Shouichi's and Byakuran naps on her shoulder for the entire plane and car ride, so there's no tantrum this time.

Even if Byakuran claims that the Gesso are a small _famiglia,_ there's still a sprawling, countryside manor for them to stay at.

" _Signorina_ Bluebell is in the North Study, sir," an immaculate, silver-haired butler informs Byakuran as they enter, and his purple eyes light up.

"Excellent, thank you," he says, steering the group down several halls to a spacious library.

Inside, there's a girl in a wheelchair, playing Grand Theft Auto and crowing victoriously into her headset as she runs down a person on a jetski with her boat.

"HA!" She cheers, throwing her arms up and tossing her long, blue hair. "Suck on _that_ , Starry-Eyes," she sneers, in fluent Japanese. "Who's Ranked Thirty-Second _now_ , you condescending little—"

"I'm home, Bluebell!" Byakuran cuts her off cheerfully.

"Oh!" She tilts her head back and smiles brightly, before pressing a button. "Hold on a sec, loser, I've got some stuff to do with people I actually care about." She pulls off the headset and tosses it onto a table, maneuvering her wheelchair with impressive fluidity until she's facing them. "Welcome back, Byakuran! These are the ones?"

Shouichi at first thinks she means the group as a whole, which includes a worried, contemplative Koenig who didn't want to leave Daisy. Then she rolls forward and grabs his and Haru's hands.

"It's so great to meet Byakuran's boyfriend and girlfriend," she gushes, beaming at them. "He's always texting me and sending me cute pictures of you two. It's obnoxious. He's the _worst_."

This casual revelation—not Fran being a literal demon, not killing a monster that was once a person, not finally acknowledging his feelings for Haru and maybe considering acknowledging his feelings for, uh, _somebody else_ , too— _this_ is the tipping point.

"It's nice to meet you," he says, politely, and then everything goes dark.


End file.
